(After, Sept 24, 2016, see upcoming Writing With Style workshops here. See all upcoming workshops and classes here.)If you do any kind of creative
writing,fiction or nonfiction, this workshop is for you.
We’ll tackle the nitty-gritty of putting words on paper in a way that will grip
the reader’s imagination. You'll learn how to avoid common errors that drain
the life from your prose. And you'll discover how to make your writing more
vivid, more elegant and more powerful.

Workshop leaderBrian Henryhas been a book editor and
creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He publishesQuick Brown Fox,
Canada’s most popular blog for writers, teaches creative writing at Ryerson
University and has led workshops everywhere from Boston to Buffalo and from
Sarnia to Saint John. But his proudest boast is that he has helped many of his
students get published.

Monday, May 30, 2016

In April, I went to the Windsor International Writers’
Conference. The writers in attendance enjoyed lots of face time time with
agents and editors, plus 20 lucky attendees left with irresistible query
letters re-written with help from yours truly. While there, I took
the opportunity to find out what various agents are looking for right now so I could share this info with you, dear reader, and also to pitch
the agents on behalf of my students who have manuscripts almost ready to go.
One agent in attendance was Michelle Johnson of Inklings.…. ~Brian

Inklings Literary
Agencyis
a new agency, established just four years ago, staffed by seven relatively new
agents all seeking authors – both established authors and
talented new-comers. The agency represents a broad range of commercial and
literary fiction, plus memoirs, true crime and some narrative nonfiction, and
young adult and middle grade fiction.

Michelle Johnson
is the founder and lead agent of Inklings. After a lifelong
obsession with books, a career in business management/ownership including
bookstores and community writing centers, and a few years with small presses in
an editorial capacity, Michelle Johnson is now in her fourth year as a literary
agent, where she represents many New York
Times bestsellers, debut authors, and indie authors alike.

“As for the one manuscript I’d love to
see right now ... it's always the one I'm least expecting that grabs me,” says
Michelle. “But what I'm actively seeking are diverse works, written by authors
with diverse backgrounds and fictionalized accounts of current controversial
subjects. Make me love a character and take me on their journey. Plus, I have a
particular interest in First Nations subject matter.

“I guess that's not really one
manuscript... sorry!”

More generally, in adult, New Adult and Young
Adult, Michelle is looking for Contemporary, Suspense, Thriller, Mystery, Romance,
Horror, Fantasy, and light Sci-Fi. She also will look at the occasional Middle Grade
manuscript if it has a phenomenal hook and voice.

She loves books that are like watching something
so compelling that you can't look away; characters who leave you feeling like a
friend’s left the room when the book’s over, and plots she can't predict. She
especially loves books that make her think about something in a new way, but
without preaching. Michelle also loves to laugh and adores dark, smart humor.

Readers should also especially take
note of Amanda Jain, the newest member of the team at
Inklings, because like all new agents, Amanda needs authors. Amanda has loved
books for as long as she can remember. When she was a kid, Amanda always had
her head in a book. In her room, in the car, in the bathtub – wherever. She
probably would have brought a book to the dinner table every evening if that
were allowed.

After earning a BA in English, she worked in the
trade department at W. W. Norton for seven years before leaving to pursue
graduate studies. She graduated in 2011 with a MA in the history of decorative
arts. Amanda then joined Inklings in 2014, first as an intern and then as
Michelle Johnson’s assistant.

Amanda is primarily
interested in adult fiction in the following categories: historical fiction (in
all genres), women’s / book club / upmarket fiction, romance (particularly
historical, suspenseful, or with a comedic bent), mysteries (particularly
historical or cozy, or historical cozies).

She is also
interested in select young adult and middle grade projects with unique hooks
and a strong voice.

In all cases, what Amanda is most looking for is
a story that completely immerses the reader in the world of the book. She wants
to feel the sun on her shoulders, smell the smoke of the battlefield, and hear
the horses galloping in the distance.

For
those who love great food and a beautiful setting with their writing, Brian
Henry has two Writer’s Retreats coming up at Arowhon Pines Resortin
Algonquin Park: Friday, June 10 – Sunday, June 12 (see here) and Friday, Sept 16 – Sunday, Sept 18
(see here).

Brian
hosts From the Horse's Mouth ~ Strategies
for Getting Published on Saturday, June 18, with
Barbara Berson of Helen Heller Agency, Michael Mirolla, publisher Guernica
Editions, and Bhavna Chauhan, editor, Penguin Random House Canada, at Ryerson
University in Toronto (see here).

Other upcoming workshops
include “Writing a Page-turner,” July 9, in Burlington (see here),
“How
to Build Your Story,” Saturday, July 16, in Midland (see here),
and “Writing
and Revising,” Saturday, July 23 in Kitchener (see here).

Note: Don't ever miss a post on
Quick Brown Fox. Fill in your email in the box to the right under my bio, and
get each post delivered to your Inbox. Also, if you’re not yet on my
newsletter, send me an email, including your locale, to:brianhenry@sympatico.ca ~ Brian

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Wait for it … wait for it … it’s my
favourite part of waiting to board my plane. My blood pressure rises in
righteous indignation, but I love it! It is the pre-boarding announcement. I
could almost rub my hands together with glee.

Now, I travel a lot for business so I
spend a lot of time at airport boarding gates. I settle down as much as one can
settle down in those monstrosities that pass for chairs. Scan left … scan right
… yup: same cast members every time. There are the nail-biters, comforting
themselves with reassuring reports of airline safety records, the kids, jazzed
up on sugar and excitement, the newlyweds, dripping honeyed kisses and bits of
confetti.

But my favourites are the ones who
respond to the pre-boarding call. (I know, I know: how can you board the plane
before you board the plane? With apologies to George Carlin, we’ll let that one
go for the moment.) The pre-boarding announcement aims to herd all those
whining toddlers and limping grannies on board ahead of the rest of us. It
allows the flight attendants to assist with rounding up the acting-out little
ones and the slow-to-act old ones, and stuffing them into their seats so
they’re out of the way. Then the onslaught of those of us responding to
the general boarding call can assault the aisle, and each other, as we battle
over prime real estate holdings in the overhead bins.

However, inevitably … wait for it … wait
for it … there go the parents with their tiny little … teenagers! Are these people deaf? Are they stupid? I realize that
those intercom announcements can be garbled, but seriously? They and the gangly
six-foot creatures beside them do not
need pre-boarding assistance!

They aren’t juggling sippy cups and bouncy seats
and withered teething biscuits. There are no diaper bags or cute little
‘Grandma Loves Me’ T-shirts. Slouching gum-gnashing adolescents with
eco-friendly hydration devices and two-hundred-dollar airlift sneakers just
don’t qualify. Giant backpacks and Legalize Pot hoodies won’t cut it. These
people simply won’t be allowed to pre-board. At least, that’s what I used to
think.

Now I just sit, with my mouth gaping, as
the kindly ladies and gentlemen at the boarding desk wave them onto the plane.
It’s at this point that my small portion of the universe becomes unhinged. How
dare these important airline employees allow these deceitful beings to flaunt the rules which the employees are meant to enforce?

This
simply cannot be allowed to continue! In the little world in my head, where
rules are meant to be followed, I would urge the airlines to hire me to oversee
the pre-boarding process. I’d sure as hell get it done with both a large dose
of efficiency and fairness. I will concede that I might be somewhat lacking in
the finesse department but, oh well, we can’t have it all now, can we?

I’d take only a moment to set my machine
gun on its tripod, aim it menacingly at any passengers who looked like
potential illegal pre-boarders, and smile sweetly as I made the announcement. I
think they’d get the point. For the first offence, a small rubber bullet, aimed
perhaps at some fleshy part of the anatomy, would probably get the message
across, while demonstrating kindness and leniency.

For those passengers demonstrating
diminished perceptions of subtlety, enhanced ammunition might need to be
brought into play. But once an internationally circulated pre-boarding list was
compiled, and the tripods were installed at each boarding gate, I’m fairly
certain the problem could be brought under control.

Those trustworthy souls who never
committed the crime could, for a small fee, apply for a speed pass. Why,
marketing professionals could create ad campaigns, urging upright citizens to
turn in neighbourhood offenders! Pre-boarding offender profiles could be
supplied to airline personnel at team-building workshops to assure front-line
compliance! Oh my, the possibilities are endless! And it would have all been MY
idea!

So the next time you consider jumping to
the head of the boarding line without the proper qualifications, just banish
the thought! Picture the gun, complete with official airline logo, mounted on
its matching tripod. Is it worth the risk just for a few more moments of
onboard togetherness with your teen? Well, seriously, is it?

Kathy Dupuis is an English teacher who decided to use some
retirement time to try to master the kind of writing assignments she used to
give to her students.

Saturday, May 28, 2016

From idea to
published novel, is a long, twisted path, but you can do it. On
June 2, HarperCollins will release Hannah McKinnon’s first novel, Time After
Time, a heartwarming story of second chances imbued with humour. In
a series of blog posts, Hannah tells how she got here…

Feb 26, 2016. Earlier this week I
signed a contract withAvon
UK(HarperCollins)for my debut novel Time After Time and I am beyond ecstatic.

Within seconds of
posting the news on Facebook I had more ‘Likes’ than fingers and toes – and
that show of support pretty much sums up my writing journey thus far. People –
family, friends, tutors, classmates, acquaintances and even complete strangers
have been incredibly supportive and encouraging. Over the next few blog entries
I’ll share my writing journey thus far in the hope it’ll inspire other writers
to keep going, to never, never, never give up.

So let’s go back around
three decades, and start there…

In
the beginning…

Like so many aspiring
authors I loved writing essays at school and bugged my teachers when I felt too
many days had passed without an assignment. I can still hear the groans of
despair from some of my classmates. One of them even threw a pen and a glue
stick at me.

But I couldn’t help it. The teacher would give us a
sentence or even just a word and that was it – my head would be down for the
next hour, my pen moving furiously across my page.

While I loved writing I
didn’t make it a priority after I left school. In my twenties I was too focused
on studies and then building my career. I joined an IT recruitment company when
I was twenty-four and over the next fifteen years climbed to the top of the
corporate ladder, got married and had three kids within 16 months – twins the second time around; I'm not some baby-making alien.

I felt I barely had
time to breathe, let alone write. I am in awe of those who rise at
4 am and knock out a few pages before dawn, but I was incapable of formulating an idea for a
short story, let alone writing one.

Note: everyone (including you)
is invited to Hannah’s launch party on June 3 (see here).
In the meanwhile, you can pre-order
a Kindle copy of Time
After Time for just $2 on
pretty much all the Amazon sites.
Check it out on Amazon.ca here. I’ve
already ordered mine ~Brian

Ever stayed up all night
reading a book?In this workshop, you’ll learn
you how to build that kind of tension. And we'll help you put into
practice the techniques professionals use – on every page and in every kind of
story – to create drama and tension.

Workshop leader Brian Henry has
been a book editor and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He
publishes Quick Brown Fox, Canada’s most popular blog for
writers, teaches creative writing at Ryerson University and has led workshops
everywhere from Boston to Buffalo and from Sarnia to Saint John. But his
proudest boast is that he has helped many of
his students get published.

If you want to get the attention of
an agent or a publisher, you need to
craft a good query letter. Using real life examples, this seminar shows you how to do it. There isn’t
just one way to write a successful query, and your query doesn’t have to be
perfect; but it does need to persuade an agent that you’ve got a book that they
can successfully pitch to a publisher.

Workshop leader Brian Henry has
been a book editor and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He
publishes Quick Brown
Fox, Canada’s most popular blog for writers, teaches creative
writing at Ryerson University and has led workshops everywhere from Boston to
Buffalo and from Sarnia to Charlottetown. But his proudest boast is that
he has helped many of his students get published.

I recently attended the Windsor International Writers’ Conference. The writers in
attendance enjoyed plenty of face time with agents and editors, plus 20lucky attendees left with irresistible query letters re-written with help from
yours truly. While there, I took the opportunity to find out what various agents are
looking for right now so I could share this info with you, dear reader,
and sometimes also to pitch the agents on behalf of my students who have a
manuscript almost ready to go. One of the agents in attendance was Christopher
Rhodes of the Stuart Agency. …. ~ Brian

The Stuart Agency was founded
in 2002 by Andrew Stuart, who had previously worked as an editor at Random
House and Simon & Schuster. The agency has three agents, including...

Christopher
Rhodes has been involved in the publishing business and agenting
for years, but only recently joined The Stuart Agency. Prior to that, he was an
agent at The James Fitzgerald Agency. Previous to that, he worked at The Carol Mann
Agency and in the sales and marketing departments at Simon and Schuster.

For fiction,
include the first 50 pages; for nonfiction, include a proposal. A Word document or a PDF is fine.

Bhavna Chauchan, editor with
Penguin Random House Canada

Brian
Henry will lead a Writing for
Children & for Young Adultsworkshop on Sunday, May 29, in Ottawa with
acclaimed author Alan Cumyn (see here).

Also,
Brian hosts From the Horse's Mouth ~ Strategies
for Getting Published on Saturday, June 18, with
Barbara Berson of Helen Heller Agency, Michael Mirolla, publisher Guernica
Editions, and Bhavna Chauhan, editor, Penguin Random House Canada, at Ryerson
University in Toronto (see here).

Other upcoming workshops
include How to Write Great
Characters, Saturday, May 14 in Toronto
(see here) and
Sunday, June 5 in Georgetown (see here),
and Writing and Revising, May 28, in Mississauga (see here).

For
those who love great food and a beautiful setting with their writing, Brian has
two Writer’s Retreats coming up at Arowhon Pines Resort in Algonquin Park: Friday,June
10 – Sunday, June 12 (see here) and
Friday, Sept 16 – Sunday, Sept 18 (see here).

Brian Henry has been a book editor, writer, and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He teaches creative writing at Ryerson University. He also leads weekly creative writing courses in Burlington, Mississauga, Oakville and Georgetown and conducts Saturday workshops throughout Ontario. His proudest boast is that he has helped many of his students get published.